


Loss - N7 Month Day 15

by miceenscene



Series: N7 Month 2019 [13]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 10:50:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21445006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miceenscene/pseuds/miceenscene
Summary: “You had your turn, now it’s mine. Sickness and in health.”
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Series: N7 Month 2019 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533266
Comments: 11
Kudos: 88





	Loss - N7 Month Day 15

Shepard had thought that the days when Garrus wouldn’t remember her at all would be the hardest. Perhaps there was something to be said for familiarity with horrors. Easier to stare down a tsunami when it’s there more days than it’s not. Or maybe it was easier because he didn’t feel like Garrus those days. Simply her turian roommate that she cared for--not the shell of the love of her life, his essence ladled out of him, memory by memory, over the last decade.

No, the harder days now where the ones when there was a spark in his eyes. When she woke up and found him already awake, looking around and cataloguing every difference he spotted between now and what he last knew. He always looked momentarily shocked whenever he looked her way. He wasn’t the only one who didn’t resemble themselves anymore. She would watch the realization wash over him, taking that blow square on chin every time. 

Not that they went a lot of places these days, but on the days he was back, rarely did they even make it to the front room. Typically, he was very reticent to let her out of his arms, let alone his sight. She was always more than willing to oblige, savoring the quiet peace of watching the sunbeam creep across the floor with her husband.

“I’m sorry,” he would sigh, eyes locked with the medical equipment scattered about the room. Then he would look down at her and frown a little deeper. “That’s not the first time I’ve apologized for this, isn’t it?”

She always answered with a kiss on his unscarred mandible. And he would rest his forehead on hers, hold her tighter.

“You had your turn, now it’s mine. Sickness and in health,” she would remind him.

He would take her hand, holding the fingers and running his thumb across her palm. “Until death do us part.”

“Not yet,” she would whisper, voice gone rough around the edges. “Not yet… please.”

And he would honor her request. Not yet. Letting go was never something either of them were good at. She kept asking, deliberately ignoring how the gaps between kept getting longer and his periods of lucidity kept getting shorter.

Till eventually the choice was taken out of both of their hands. Shepard woke up to find Garrus neither placid nor lucid. He wasn’t there at all. She was mistaken all along. This was the hardest day. 

With shaking hands she opened her omnitool and reached out to the only person she could bear to see right now. “Liara…” Her voice broke over the single word.

“I’m on my way, Shepard. I’ll take care of everything.”

And she did. Friends came and left, services were planned and conducted. Liara remained the constant force till everything and everyone else was gone. Till it was just the two of them standing by a grave. A strange resting place for a turian war hero, a human style grave on a small tropical planet near the terminus systems. But as Garrus has always reminded her, grave sites are for the living. 

Freshly settled earth under Shepard’s knees, the constant roar of the ocean and her now dearest friend behind her. She pressed her palm against the name etched in stone.

“Don’t let them move me,” she said in a hollow voice. “When it’s my time, I don’t care what anyone else wants. I want to be here.”

“Of course.” Liara squeezed her shoulder and murmured that she’d be back in the house before walking away and letting Shepard have as long as she needed.

For a long time she didn’t move, not until the name had been impressed onto her skin. She sucked in a breath and nodded once. “You had your turn… and someday it’ll be mine. Save me a seat. I’ll be there with you eventually.”

And she rose to her feet, not ready but resigned to face a world without someone at her six.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for any typos. Legit could not to a reread without tearing up rn. So apologies. I promise tomorrow's story will be happier. <3, K


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